Love You Madly

by Michael Fleeman

  “With the evidence,” Wells said, “that you had exaggerated?”

  “In the interview that I had exaggerated.”

  After a few follow-up questions by the prosecution—McPherron said he followed all the legal procedures, reading Rachelle her rights, telling her she could have her father there, and telling her she could leave anytime—the detective left the stand. Prosecutor West had an announcement.

  “Your Honor,” he said, “the state rests.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  After a morning break, the defense called its first witness—psychologist Dr. Marty Beyer—to give a scaled-down version of her report from the pretrial hearing. The judge had found that some of her findings about Rachelle’s mind-set were inadmissible—unless Rachelle herself testified. For now, Steven Wells was not revealing whether his client would take the stand.

  Called to explain why Rachelle had made the statements she had during the interrogation, Dr. Beyer said research had found that teenage brains are not fully developed. Specifically, the frontal cortex—responsible for judgment and impulse control—is still forming throughout the adolescent years, leaving teens to rely upon more primitive centers of the brain.

  “They can’t think like an adult because they don’t have an adult brain,” Dr. Beyer said.

  In Rachelle’s case, this immature thinking was exacerbated by such traumas as low self-esteem from her early maturing body and by being raped by a stranger at age thirteen.

  “That had a major impact on her, not only because it was frightening, but it was her first sexual experience,” said Dr. Beyer. “She also was traumatized by her mother’s disapproval of her grades, her clothes, her weight, and her friends. This consistent disapproval was very painful for her.”

  By age fifteen, even though Rachelle had a summer job, got good grades, and led an active life, “she remained more needy” and was wracked by depression. “It’s not surprising that she would be flattered by attention by older guys.”

  Alone, leery of her mother, her brain too immature to see the consequences of her actions, “she thought that crying on Jason’s shoulder about her mother was nothing more than venting,” said Dr. Beyer. “She didn’t see the dangers of hanging around with creepy older guys. She dismissed Jason’s planning as being stupid fantasies, as she called it.”

  It never seriously occurred to her that Jason would follow through with the murder, and by the time the police interrogated her, Rachelle was so filled with grief and confusion that she fell prey to the detectives’ aggressive questioning.

  Defense attorney Wells asked, “In interviews in which there is a tremendous amount of psychological pressure, such as this with juveniles, can they come to believe things that are told to them?”

  “Yes,” said Dr. Beyer, “there are examples that have been written about in the literature.”

  Under cross-examination, Dr. Beyer acknowledged that she relied on Rachelle for all of her information, including the account of the rape, for which there were no witnesses, police report, or physical evidence. The therapist also said that in forming her opinion that Rachelle had low self-esteem about her body, she hadn’t known that Rachelle sent explicit nude photos of herself to Jason.

  Beyer also said that while a person’s brain is not fully developed until the mid-twenties, teenagers are still capable of making important decisions with serious consequences. And she agreed that by law they are allowed to vote, join the military, and get abortions—all at age eighteen.

  The defense next called Rachelle’s father for his second round of testimony, this time to give the jury a glimpse at what he lost when Lauri was killed.

  “What was your relationship like with Lauri?” asked Wells.

  “I think that we were probably as close as most couples and hopefully closer than most,” he said. “Over the years, she learned to tolerate me very well.”

  “Did you all have plans for essentially a long future together?”

  “Yes, we had just recently been discussing what we would do when I retired.”

  He had purchased property near Hollis on which he planned to build a retirement home.

  “Did you ever have those conversation around Rachelle?”

  “Yes, occasionally, we would just be sitting there talking and the kids would be around.”

  Doc said again that Rachelle never said anything about Lauri hurting her, but he could surmise why Rachelle may have told people her mother wanted to sell her into slavery.

  Wells asked, “Growing up, did Lauri ever have a phrase: ‘Selling somebody to the Gypsies’?”

  “That was an old childhood phrase of hers,” Doc said. “I’m not sure that it had any real in-depth meaning. It was a teasing or a taunting.”

  And Doc also sought to show that Rachelle couldn’t have tipped off Jason and Brian about how to break into the house. Doc noted that when Rachelle snuck out of the house, she returned through a different window from the one Brian used. Also, Rachelle could have simply given them a key to the house.

  “Each child had a key,” said Doc, who found Rachelle’s key after she was arrested. “It was in a dish on her dresser.”

  After a short cross-examination, all eyes were on Wells and whether he would call Rachelle to the stand. Although Wells wasn’t revealing his trial strategy, his decision-making process is similar in all cases. Decisions on what motions to file and what other witnesses to call are always his, in consultation with the client. The client decides whether to go to trial or take a plea agreement, whether the trial will be conducted before a judge alone or a jury, whether to appeal a verdict, and finally whether to testify on his or her own behalf.

  After Doc Waterman walked off the stand, Wells announced Rachelle’s decision.

  “Your Honor, at this time the defense would rest,” he said.

  The drama of the moment was marred by the fact that Wells committed a procedural blunder, and the judge, in a rare flash of anger, quickly dismissed the jury with a warning that the case wasn’t over just yet and jumped all over him.

  “Mr. Wells, I specifically asked you—directed—that you advise me before the defense rests because as you know the law requires that I address the defendant before the defense rests about their right to testify,” Judge Collins scolded him. “Is there some reason you didn’t do this?”

  “I’m sorry,” said Wells. “No, I’m sorry, Your Honor, I just got flustered, for lack of a better word. I’m sorry.”

  Judge Collins made clear that she wasn’t going to have this held against her if the case was appealed—that the fault was all Wells’s. “I consider it invited error to the extent that there is any error that is ever alleged,” she said.

  Then, with the jury still out, the judge had a courtroom heart-to-heart with Rachelle.

  “Let me turn to Miss Waterman,” Judge Collins said, “because, Miss Waterman, as I just instructed, this case is by no means over at this point, and you have a very important decision that you must make at this point.”

  Rachelle locked eyes with the judge and nodded.

  “While the advice of your lawyer or your father or others might be of assistance to you, the ultimate decision about whether to testify or not testify in this case is yours and yours alone to make,” the judge said. “If you choose not to testify, I will instruct the jury that they cannot hold that fact against you. But the decision as to whether or not to testify is a very important one, and it’s so important that the law requires that I address you personally about whether or not it’s your choice whether or not to testify.”

  The judge lowered her voice to a near whisper.

  “When I talk about your choice, it’s a choice freely made without being influenced unfairly by your lawyer or anybody else,” said the judge. “Is it your choice not to testify in this trial?”

  Rachelle said, “Yes, Your Honor.”

  Just minutes after Rachelle’s lawyer called a witness saying her seventeen-year-old brain wasn’t developed enough for f
ully mature judgments, Rachelle was now making the biggest decision of her life.

  “Do you have any question about the right you are giving up?” the judge asked.

  “No, Your Honor,” said Rachelle.

  The jury was released, and closing arguments were scheduled for the next day.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Ketchikan district attorney Stephen West brought the jury back to where he began, showing a photo of Lauri Waterman.

  “This case,” he said, “is about Lauri Waterman. Unfortunately, it’s about the cold-blooded execution of Lauri Waterman. I use the word ‘execution’ because that’s exactly what it was. It was planned, they decided to kill her, and they went out and executed her.”

  The conspirators, he said, were Jason Arrant, Brian Radel, and Rachelle Waterman. Two had already pleaded guilty and were facing long prison terms, the third’s fate would soon be in the hands of the jury.

  If ever a case relied on effective summations, this one was it. West needed to convince the panel that Rachelle set in motion and cooperated with a plot to commit a crime that occurred while she was hundreds of miles away. It was a chain-reaction conspiracy, he said, triggered and nurtured by Rachelle and carried out by Jason Arrant and Brian Radel.

  “They did it because they believed they were trying to protect Miss Waterman,” said West. “Miss Waterman did it because she was wanting to get out from under control of her mother.”

  It was an argument that appealed to jurors’ reason and their ability to grasp the nuances of conspiracy law. West, relying on an outline of his presentation on a legal pad, delivered a businesslike presentation, detailed and carefully reasoned, illustrated by images projected on a courtroom screen, but lacking soaring rhetoric. He spoke in the same low-key Texas-flavored drawl as he had throughout the case.

  The emotion came from Rachelle. West replayed portions of her 2004 police interrogation video, including the most incriminating exchanges when she tearfully acknowledged that she first told Jason in August 2004 that she wanted to get rid of her mother. The jury watched again as Rachelle admitted that she knew first about the plan to shoot her mother, though urged Jason to call it off, and then telling Jason that if they wanted to try again, the weekend she and her father were out of town “would be the opportune time.”

  Proof that Rachelle was in on the scheme could be found in Jason’s e-mail and Rachelle’s letter talking about the “hunting trip,” which West said “everyone agreed” referred to the plot. After her mother disappeared, Rachelle betrayed her knowledge of what happened by telling people her mother probably died in a DUI accident, even though police had not yet revealed that the burned van had been found. And when police talked to Rachelle, she admitted to lying about talking to Jason on the phone the night of the killing.

  “She’s trying to give him an alibi so he can get away with the murder of her mother,” West said.

  But after initial resistance, Jason told detectives everything, including Rachelle’s involvement, West said, arguing that Jason should be believed because everything he said about the killing was corroborated by the evidence that he showed Trooper Claus during their drive around the island. Jason, the prosecutor said, had cooperated long before he was ever offered a plea deal.

  “If it hadn’t been for Mr. Arrant telling the police that Mr. Radel had killed Lauri Waterman, and wearing the wire, this would probably be an unsolved homicide,” he said.

  As for the thorniest part of the case—Rachelle’s young age at the time of the alleged conspiracy—West insisted that she was not a passive figure. Under the law, simply knowing about a conspiracy and not doing anything to stop it is not in and of itself a crime. A person needs to know that conspiracy exists and agree to be part of it, even if they don’t know all the details of the plot.

  “She wasn’t just sitting around and heard Mr. Arrant and Mr. Radel talking about this,” he said. “She actually was communicating with them about the murder. She was actually talking with them about what the plans were.”

  Under the law, he said, that makes her as guilty as if she had suffocated her mother herself—guilty of all the crimes alleged, including first-degree murder, kidnapping, second-degree murder, theft, and tampering with evidence due to the burning of the van.

  “Some people will say they would have difficulty convicting someone of that age in this case and that she really shouldn’t be involved in this case at all,” West acknowledged. “First of all, the law says that somebody who is sixteen, seventeen years old and commits or is an accessory to murder is treated the same as an adult. Their age makes no difference. Once you get to be sixteen or seventeen and you kill somebody or you are involved in killing somebody, you’re getting involved in adult activities.”

  West implored jurors to “determine the facts” and make a decision “relying solely on the evidence, not governed by sentiment, prejudice, public feeling.” Even if they had sympathy for Lauri Waterman, “your job is to be judges and take it on fair consideration of evidence in this case.”

  West wrapped up the first part of his summation—he would be allowed a rebuttal after the defense’s closing argument—by using a word that so far had not been spoken in the courtroom, but which had permeated the case.

  “Unfortunately, children do kill their fathers and their mothers. It occurs. It is rare. But it occurs. And that is what occurred in this situation,” he said. “Miss Waterman was involved. She asked Mr. Arrant to kill her mother, she was involved in discussing plans with them, she even called one of the plans off, she told them about being alone, that being a weekend that they could do it. She was involved in this case. She was involved in the murder of her mother. She committed what’s called matricide.”

  After a break, defense attorney Steven Wells rose before the jury.

  “Did Rachelle Waterman want her mom to die?” he asked. “That’s the question in this case. Did she want her mom to die? Did this teenage girl want her mom to die?”

  He said, “No. No, she did not want her mom to die. We know that from who she is. We know that from what she said. We know that from how she’s acted. We know that from what other people have said and the other evidence. The fact of the matter is, ladies and gentleman, this is not a case of whether Rachelle Waterman is not guilty. This is a case where Rachelle Waterman is innocent.”

  In stark contrast to the prosecution’s reason-based approach, Wells delivered an impassioned defense of his young client, taking a chance by telling jurors from the onset that he wasn’t going to merely poke holes in the state’s case to show reasonable doubt. He wanted Rachelle exonerated.

  The issue of who Rachelle is, Wells argued, loomed large: she was a mere teenage girl, plunged “in denial” about her mother’s horrific fate and feeling guilt—“not legal guilt, human guilt.

  “Was Rachelle Waterman giving an alibi for Jason Arrant?” asked Wells. “No, Rachelle Waterman was saying: ‘You know, I don’t want to accept that my mom is dead. I don’t want to accept that Jason did this. I don’t want to accept that I didn’t see the signs’.”

  The detectives then pounced on this emotionally fragile girl using “interrogation techniques that border between offensive and abusive,” said Wells, “and they break down Rachelle.” By the end she would tell them anything they wanted to hear, just to make it stop, he said, but even then she never fully and completely confessed.

  “What is it they get?” he asked, his voice rising. “They get them saying [to Rachelle]: ‘You knew and did nothing about it.’ Now if you assume that that is true, the law requires you find Rachelle not guilty.”

  Shouting and pounding the podium, Wells said, “Knowing is not enough! Not doing anything is not enough! That’s not enough!”

  While the detectives refused to believe Rachelle, they clung to every final word against her by Jason Arrant, whose letters showed him to be a “deranged, stalking, manipulative, child predator,” said Wells. When examined closely, the only thing incriminating in this co
mmunication between Jason and Rachelle—the reference to the “hunting trip”—was perfectly innocent. “‘Hunting trip’ is smoking and drinking,” he said—not murder.

  The driving force in the plot, Wells argued, was not Rachelle but Jason, his obsession with his teen object of sexual desire manifesting itself as a twisted homicidal urge against her mother, whom he blamed for keeping them apart. As evidence, he said, Jason went “nuts” when Rachelle was grounded and stripped of her computer privileges. Rachelle, in contrast, was “getting along better” with her mother by late fall 2004.

  “I ask you, which is more likely: that Rachelle Waterman said, ‘Get rid of my mom because she’s a little hard on me’?” said Wells. “Or Jason said: ‘I’m getting rid of Lauri because I can’t have access to Rachelle and I’m not having sex with a sixteen-year-old girl anymore’? Jason had a motive.”

  If Rachelle had been involved in the final murder plot, Wells argued, she would have handed over her house key, or at least told Jason about the key her father hung near the garage door, and she would have provided a floor plan to her house.

  “It never happens. Why? Because Jason’s not talking to her about killing her mom,” said Wells. “Jason is not talking to her because Jason knows that she does not want her mom dead. It isn’t that she wants her mom dead. It’s that Jason wants Rachelle.”

  After the killing, detectives refused to accept Rachelle’s denials but believed her coerced admissions while seizing upon Jason’s self-serving statements that Rachelle was involved. He urged the jury not to make the same mistake police did.

  “Unless you are convinced that Jason Aarrant is telling only the truth from that stand, if you have questions about what Jason Arrant said, you have to find Rachelle Waterman not guilty,” said Wells. “And let’s face it: Jason Arrant was a lying sack of snitch.”

  Jason, Wells went on, “is absolutely, completely unbelievable when he talks about Rachelle” and is “out to save his own hide” in an effort to score a plea deal.